Costs of obesity drugs

The Courier, a newspaper based in Dundee, Scotland recently reported that NHS Tayside were spending 19 times more on obesity drugs than it did in 1999. My goodness, 19 times more. They cite number of drugs, including: ORLISTAT, SIBUTRAMINE (REDUCTIL) and RIMONABANT (ACCOMPLIA). Of course, Sibutramine has been removed from the market in most European countries because of safety issues, so one would hope that NHS Tayside aren't prescribing much of this anymore.

However, most of these drugs weren't widely available in 1999. Orlistat and Sibutramine were only recommended by NICE in 2001,and Rimonabant has only been available since 2008.

So, it would seem likely that NHS Tayside were not prescribing many drugs in 1999 that had neither been recommended by bodies such as NICE, or hadn't actually been released yet. I've done a bit of research and found that the amount of money spent by the consumer on hybrid cars is massively greater than it was in 1950. Should we be alarmed?